Existential Climate and Election Risk? Why Don't In-Your-Face Climate Pranksters Focus on Musk's Trump Push
In the final weeks of the 2024 general election campaign, I’m thinking about a more productive role for in-your-face climate activists like those who invaded an “Abundance” conference in Washington several days ago. Decamp for Pittsburgh. Read on.
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I’ve written and tweeted and webcasted a lot about the role of prank-focused activists pursuing climate action. Some relevant posts are included below. I’ve mostly been critical. For road blockers, for instance, I’ve endorsed one obstructed driver’s plea to just “open one lane.”
But I also acknowledge every curve has long tails, and it’s worth remembering that the system trait ecologists call “response diversity” is inevitable and ultimately desirable facing complex threats. As I frequently say in talks, imagine if those pursuing clean-energy and climate progress were all Bill Gates or all Greta Thunberg. How would that work out? I’d posit not too well.
I’m thinking about this again after the well-funded group of young climate protestors called Climate Defiance - whose mode of operation is splashy confrontations with energy and financial executives, elected officials like Senator Joe Manchin and their ilk - chose a Washington “Abundance” conference featuring the progressive blogger
and many of the crew, including founder Ted Nordhaus. Pies weren’t thrown (I’m not sure why that tactic I witnessed at climate talks in 2000 hasn’t made a reappearance?). But a lot of social media was generated - and predictably exploited by the climate protestors’ critics as much as their allies.And much has since been written, including a Twitter thread by
pointing to his argument for sustaining gas fracking, another thread critiquing this form of activism by the climate policy analyst (who was there), and a post by Nordhaus, who offered a reflection on the group’s choice of “climate criminals” along with his keynote talk:
On the day of the incident I tweeted:
Tossing around the label climate criminals is quite something coming from activists funded by - among others - oil heirs via Climate Emergency Fund.”
But this morning, after reading Yglesias along with a detailed New York Times report on the huge financial and logistical push Elon Musk is overseeing for Trump in the keystone swing state Pennsylvania, I thought the issue here is less tactics than target.
Musk’s your man
Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch laid out the stakes in a must-read (and share!) piece that started out funny but transitioned to this core point:
Elon Musk is no laughing matter. To the contrary, his two-pronged effort — buying a major channel for U.S. political conversation and bending it into a disinformation machine, and now spending untold millions from his fortune to elect Trump and other MAGA candidates — is exactly the kind of democracy-crushing event that would have terrified the nation’s founders. It’s hard to say what’s worse: that the world’s richest man is trying to buy the White House, or that — amid the increasingly outrageous lies from Trump and the historic nature of Kamala Harris’ eleventh-hour campaign — we’re not giving it proper attention.
Here’s my pitch to these agitators as laid out on Musk’s platform:
Activism will always take many forms. #Responsediversity facing challenges is inevitable. The big fail here is in the choice of targets. To my eye, given the #election2024 stakes, there's only one place for in-their-face @ClimateDefiance @a22network @DecEmergency prankster types if they truly consider this a climate election, as
proposed earlier this year: That's camping out around the Pittsburgh war room (and those elsewhere) where kingmaker @ElonMusk is reportedly personally running his vastly funded PAC push to elect @realDonaldTrump.Most Americans outside hard-core MAGAworld world have a fundamental sense of fair play. Drawing attention to this outsider billionaire's effort in Pennsylvania might help tip a crucial vote or two.
Or just keep harassing folks pursuing sustainable progress in ways that don't fit your particular vision...
One reason I hold this view is it has worked elsewhere.
One path to exposing the enormous influence of the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo on the last Trump administration’s successful push to rebuild the Supreme Court was sustained peaceful protests outside his home here in Downeast Maine. Here’s some relevant Substack coverage on
’s and :
To connect all the Leonard Leo dots, listen to the fantastic On the Media/ProPublica podcast “We Don’t Talk About Leonard”:
The clock is ticking. Get to it.
Or not.